Isaiah 60

"Arise, shine! For your light has come,and the glory of Yahweh has risen on you.For look! darkness shall cover the earth,and thick darkness the peoples,but Yahweh will rise on you,and his glory will appear over you.And nations shall come to your light,and kings to the bright light of your sunrise.Lift up your eyes all around and see!All of them gather; they come to you.Your sons shall come from afar,and your daughters shall be looked after on the hip.Then you shall seeand you shall be radiant;and your heart shall trembleand open itself wide,because the abundance of the sea shall fall upon you;the wealth of the nations shall come to you.A multitude of camels shall cover you,the young male camels of Midian and Ephah.All those from Sheba shall come;they shall bring gold and frankincense,and they shall proclaim the praise of Yahweh.All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you;the rams of Nebaioth shall serve you.They shall present a sacrifice for favor on my altar,and I will glorify my honorable house.Who are these? They fly like a cloud,and like doves to their coops.Because the coastlands wait for me,and the ships of Tarshish are firstto bring your children from afar,their silver and gold with them,for the name of Yahweh your God,and for the holy one of Israel, because he has glorified you.And foreigners shall build your walls,and their kings shall serve you,for in my anger I struck you,but in my favor I have taken pity on you.And your gates shall continually be open,day and night they shall not be shut,to bring you the wealth of nations,and their kings shall be led.For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve you shall perish,and the nations shall be utterly devastated.The glory of Lebanon shall come to you;the cypress, the plane, and the pine together,to glorify the place of my sanctuary,and I will do honor to the place of my feet.And the children of those who oppressed you shall come to you bending low,and all those who treated you disrespectfully shall bow down at the soles of your feet.And they shall call you the city of Yahweh,Zion of the holy one of Israel.Instead of you being forsakenand hated with no one passing through,I will make you an everlasting object of pride,a joy of coming generations.And you shall suck the milk of nations,and suck the breast of kings,and you shall know that I am Yahweh your Savior,and your Redeemer, the Strong One of Jacob.Instead of bronze I will bring gold,and instead of iron I will bring silver,and instead of wood, bronze,and instead of stones, iron.And I will appoint peace as your overseer,and righteousness asyour ruling body.Violence shall no longer be heard in your land;devastation or destruction on your borders.And you shall call your walls Salvation,and your gates, Praise.The sun shall no longer be your light by day,and for bright light the moon shall not give you light,but Yahweh will be your everlasting light,and your God your glory.Your sun shall no longer go down,and your moon shall not wane,for Yahweh himself will be your everlasting light,and your days of mourning shall come to an end.And all your people shall be righteous;they shall take possession of the land forever,the shoot of his planting,the work of my hands, to show my glory.The small one shall become a tribe,and the smallest one a mighty nation.

I am Yahweh; I will hasten it in its time."

Isaiah 61

The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me,because Yahweh has anointed me,he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,to bind up the brokenhearted,to proclaim release to the captivesand liberation to those who are bound,to proclaimthe year of Yahweh’s favor,and our God’s day of vengeance,to comfort all those in mourning,to give for those in mourning in Zion,to give them a head wrap instead of ashes,the oil of joy instead of mourning,a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.And they will be called oaks of righteousness,the planting of Yahweh, to show his glory.And they shall build the ancient ruins,they shall erect the former deserted places.And they shall restore thedevastated cities,the deserted places of many generations.And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,and foreignersshall be your farmers and vinedressers.But you shall be called the priests of Yahweh,you will be called servers of our God.You shall eat the wealth of the nations,and you shall boast in their riches.Instead of your shame, a double portion,and instead of insult, they will rejoice over their portion.Therefore they will take a double portion in their land;they shall possess everlasting joy.For I, Yahweh, love justice,hate robbery and injustice,and I will faithfully give their reward,and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.And their descendants will be known among the nations,and their offspring in the midst of the peoples.All those who see them shall recognize them,that they are descendants whom Yahweh has blessed.I will rejoice greatly in Yahweh;my being shall shout in exultation in my God.For he has clothed me with garments of salvation,he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,as a bridegroom adorns himselfwith a head wrap like a priest,and as a bride adorns herself with her jewelry.For as the earth produces its sprout,and as a garden makes its plants sprout,so the Lord Yahweh will make righteousness sprout,and praise before all the nations.

Isaiah 62

For the sake of Zion I will not be silent,and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not maintain a quiet attitude,until her righteousness goes out like the bright light,and her salvation burns like a torch.And the nations shall see your righteousness,and all the kings your glory,and you will be called a new namethat the mouth of Yahweh will designate.And you shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of Yahweh,and a headband of royalty in the hand of your God.It shall no longer be said of you, "Forsaken,"and it shall no longer be said of your land, "Desolation!"but you will be called "My Delight Is In Her,"and your land, "Married,"for Yahweh delights in you,and your land shall be married.For as a young man marries a virgin,so shall your sons marry you,and as is the joy of the bridegroom over the bride,so shall your God rejoice over you.I have appointed watchmen upon your walls, Jerusalem;all day and all night they shall never be silent.You who profess Yahweh have no rest.And you must not give him rest until he establishes,and until he makes Jerusalem an object of praise in the earth.Yahweh has sworn by his right hand,and by his mighty arm,"Surely I will never again give your grain as food to your enemies,and surely foreigners shall not drink your new wine at which you have labored."But those who gather it shall eat it, and they shall praise Yahweh,and those who gather it shall drink it in my holy courts.Pass through, pass through the gates!Make the way clear for the people!Pile up, pile up the highway; clear it of stones!Lift up an ensign over the peoples!

Look! Yahweh has proclaimed to the end of the earth:

Say to daughter Zion, "Look, your salvation is coming!Look, his reward is with him,and his reward before him.And they shall call them "The Holy People, The Redeemed Of Yahweh,"and you shall be called "Sought After, A City Is Not Forsaken."

Isaiah 63

Who is this, coming from Edom,from Bozrah in bright red garments?Who is this honored in his garment,lying down in his great strength?"It is I, speaking in justice,mighty to save!"Why are your garments red,and your garments like he who treads in the winepress?"I have trodden the winepress alone,and there was no man from the peoples with me.And I trod them in my anger,and I trampled them in my wrath,and spattered their juice on my garments,and stained all my clothing,for the day of vengeance was in my heart,and the year of my blood-vengeance has come!And I looked, but there was no helper,and I was appalled, but there was no one who sustains,so my arm came to assist me,and my wrath was what sustained me.And I trampled peoples in my anger,and I made them drunk in my wrath,and I brought their juice down to the earth."

I will mention the loyal love of Yahweh, the praises of Yahweh, according to all that Yahweh has done for us,and the greatness of goodness to the house of Israel that he has done to them according to his mercy and the abundance of his loyal love.

And he said, "Surely my people are children; they will not break faith." And he became a Savior to them.

In all their distress, there was no distress,and the messenger of his presence saved them,in his love and compassion he himself redeemed them,and he lifted them up,and he supported them all the days of old.But they were the ones who rebelled,and they grieved his Holy Spirit,so he became an enemy to them;he himself fought against them.Then his people remembered the days of old, of Moses.Where is the one who led up them from the sea with the shepherds of his flock?Where is the one who puts his Holy Spirit inside him,who made his magnificent arm move at the right hand of Moses,who dividedthe waters before them,to make an everlasting name for himself,who led them through the depths?They did not stumble like a horse in the desert;like cattle in the valley that goes down, the Spirit of Yahweh gave him rest,so you lead your people to make a magnificent name for yourself.

Look from heaven,and see from the lofty residence of your holiness and glory.Where are your zeal and strength?Your compassion and mercy to me hold themselves back.For you are our father, although Abraham does not know us,and Israel does not acknowledge us.You, Yahweh are our father,Our Redeemer from of old is your name.Why do you make us wander, Yahweh?You harden our heart from your ways so that we do not fear you.Turn back for the sake of your servants,the tribes of your inheritance.Your holy people took possession for a little while;our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.We have been since antiquity; you did not rule them;they were not called by your name.

2 Corinthians 1

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, together with all the saints who are in all Achaia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in all affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, thus through Christ our comfort overflows also. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort that is at work in the patient endurance of the same sufferings that we also suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you are sharers in the sufferings, so also you will be sharers in the comfort.

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning our affliction that happened in the province of Asia, that we were burdened to an extraordinary degree, beyond our strength, so that we were in despair even of living. But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, so that we would not be putting confidence in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a risk of death, and will deliver us, in whom we have put our hope that he will also deliver us again, while you also join in helping on our behalf by prayer, so that thanks may be given on our behalf by many persons for this gracious gift given to us through the help of many.

For our reason for boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, in holiness and purity of motive from God, not in merely human wisdom, but by the grace of God. For we are not writing anything else to you except what you can read or also understand. But I hope that you will understand completely, just as you have also understood us in part, that we are your reason for boasting, just as you are also ours in the day of our Lord Jesus.

And with this confidence, I was wanting to come to you previously, in order that you may have a second proof of my goodwill, and through you to go to Macedonia, and to come to you again from Macedonia, and to be sent on my way by you to Judea. Therefore, when I was wanting to do this, perhaps then was I making use of vacillation? Or was I deciding what I was deciding according to the flesh, in order that with me my "yes" may be "yes" and my "no" may be "no" at the same time? But God is faithful, so that our word to you is not "yes" and "no." For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the one who was proclaimed among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, did not become "yes" and "no," but has become "yes" in him. For as many as are the promises of God, in him they are "yes"; therefore also through him is the "amen" to the glory of God through us. Now the one who establishes us together with you in Christ and who anoints us is God, who also sealed us and gave the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.

But I call upon God as witness against my life, that in order to spare you, I did not come again to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy, because by faith you stand firm.